sigh

rant below, feel free to unfollow upon reading.

honestly i can't wait until we get a different song for one of the xii b/c i'm sick of the emphasized "brown sand ppl love money" exoticisms floating around in the fandom lately

signed, a brown sand person who is ambivalent toward being exoticized with the aesthetic of orientalized opulence

like there's a fucking difference b/w having colorful clothes and every goddamn thing being made of silk and rubies

y'all know some people wear other inexpensive things right? rich people exist fucking everywhere, and literally globally not all people all want to be explicitly rich as opposed to COMFORTABLE

just, the whole thing about ~rich brown sand people~ is that they've historically been depicted as savages who give into greed and hedonism, that goes against moral codes dating as far back as the victorian empire era THAT STILL INFLUENCE US TODAY

i thought i would have this thrown in my face in THAVNAIR more, but good god! i thought i'd gotten USED to this whole thing in the fandom, but NOOOOO

literally - snake ladies > LOVE "BEAUTY" AND HOARD JEWELS (which i first did not mind b/c they are based on NAGAS FROM HINDUISM who live in underground gilded and jeweled cities and protect jewels of beauty and power from others!!!!)

thavnair - OOOH MARKETS CRAZY BAZAAR IT'S SO HARD TO GET AROUND IN THIS FOREIGN PLACE OF CLASHING PATTERNS AND COLOURS FROM AMBIGUOUS PARTS OF THE "MIDDLE EAST" AND "SOUTH ASIA" EVERYONE CHASING WEALTH DOWN HERE IT'S BARBARIC BUT HEY IT'S HOME

ul'dah - from the start, from the start, i had cringed vibes from you. but then you started showing why capitalism is bad. but now, we have a song with SO MUCH FUCKING EMPHASIS ON GOLD AS OPPOSED TO JUSTICE, FAIRNESS, BALANCE AND TRADE -- (HAVING MATERIAL GOODS AND ASKING FOR WEALTH IS NOT THE SAME AS ASKING FOR WISDOM TO MAKE GOOD BUSINESS DECISIONS) -- THAT THE FUCKING STEREOTYPES ARE BACK IN BUSINESS FUCKING FUCK

it's not that i don't love the game, or respect the creators/writers, or enjoy the fandom. I DO. but i am SO SICK of being pelted with orientalisms and being reminded that NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE PAIN INFLICTED BY THEIR CELEBRATION OF DISNEY'S ALADDIN 1992 ESQUE CULTURAL EXAGGERATIONS AND PERVERSIONS EVERY FUCKING SECOND I LOG ONTO THE GODDAMN INTERNET

"but what do i dooooo gwenny???" you ask in the voice of a booger stuffed, helpless baby

YOU GO OUT AND LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD.

i'm not mad at the people who are trying to learn. i am mad at the passive acceptance of this bullshit as fact.

the creators belong to a certain generation and cultural lattitude that causes the production of this aesthetic. i understand the good faith. i understand their positions. i will never reach them, they are doing their best, and i do my best to read between the lines.

but literally anyone with the fucking internet can read about the actual real lives of people living in the countries with the cultural practices they consume fetishize fantasize about. i'm very sick of being pelted with symbols of ignorance everywhere i fucking go.

"what do i do???" GOOGLE, BITCH. JUST GOOGLE. AND WHEN GOOGLE FAILS, GO READ SOME BOOKS, AND WHEN BOOKS FAIL, GO TALK TO SOME REAL ASS PEOPLE.

it should NOT take someone with a master's degree to point out blatant racisms that continue to other "brown sand people" and other people from other places, for that matter

SIGNED, A PISSED OFF 30 YEAR OLD PUNJABI WOMAN WITH A FUCKING MASTERS DEGREE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURAL THEORY! YES, BITCH, I WENT TO SCHOOL TO LEARN HOW TO READ AND WRITE, SO TAKE MY OLD, ABUSE SURVIVING, BODY HAIR HAVING, BROWN SKIN HAVING ASS'S GODDAMN FURY FILLED ADVICE

GO, ADVENTURER! GO AND SEE AND LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD!

Drop of Paradise - Part Three

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Note: Thanks to @dargeon-lissa for helping me with French in the last part.

Multicultural week was an annual thing at François-Dupont, Lila learned from Nino. Doing a presentation was optional, and since it happened every year, most of the kids their age who had a culture worth sharing and were interested in sharing it had done it already.

When Lila asked Ms. Bustier about it, she told Lila that there were going to be fifteen presentations this year. Four each on the first three days of the week, three on Thursday, and then on Friday they would all take a test on what they had learned to make sure they’d been paying attention. Not an important test, she reassured Lila; it was just to make sure the students had taken the week and the opportunity to learn seriously instead of goofing off. Surely someone as well-traveled as Lila would have no difficulty passing the test with flying colors.

From Alya, Lila learned that most of the presentations would be given by students in year six who had just started attending François-Dupont this year. Alya herself had thought about doing a presentation on Martinique, but had ultimately decided against giving herself more work to do when she already had all of her regular homework, her work on the Ladyblog, her babysitter duties with her younger sisters, and her dates with Nino. However, their very own class representative and Alya’s best friend was going to be giving the last presentation of the week after lunch on Thursday.

Apparently Marinette’s presentation was set to be the last one and the only one after lunch on Thursday because the school had decided it would generate much more interest than all of the other presentations. They didn’t want Marinette to accidentally upstage anyone, or rather, Marinette didn’t want to accidentally upstage anyone, and so she had offered to go last. And of course, her presentation was set to be longer than anyone else’s because the school wanted there to be enough time for as many questions as possible to be answered.

Lila would be infuriated about it all if she wasn’t so smart. Fortunately, though, Lila was nothing if not resourceful, intelligent, and clever, so she recognized the situation for the perfect opportunity that it was. Come lunchtime on Thursday, she found herself smirking as she watched Marinette bolt out of the classroom the very instant the bell rang.

She was in a hurry to get home and make sure everything was ready for her upcoming presentation, no doubt. Lila had been keeping an eye on her all week, and it was clear that Marinette had spent most of the time preparing. She was trying so hard to ensure that her presentation would be as close to perfect as it could possibly get. How sad, then, that all of her hard work would be for nothing, because by the time Marinette returned to school, all of her beloved friends would be exactly where Lila wanted them.

Lila carefully schooled her features to replace the smirk on her face with an innocent smile as she collected her lunch tray and headed over to the table where the rest of her classmates were gathered. The seat next to Alya, the place where Marinette usually sat, was vacant. Lila happily took it.

“Yeah, it’s been, like, two weeks,” Alix was saying. She nodded at Lila in acknowledgement when she sat down. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long.”

“I think her cousin is visiting,” Rose said. “We saw her enter the bakery on Saturday when we were getting snacks for our impromptu band practice. Maybe that’s why?”

“Are you guys talking about Marinette?” Lila asked.

“Yeah,” Alix replied. “She said she’d make me some pajama shorts since summer is coming up, but it’s been like two weeks since then. I should probably just buy some, but I don’t want to spend money if I don’t have to.”

“Ask her about it,” Alya suggested. “She could have forgotten about it. That girl is so forgetful. It’s ridiculous.” Alya rolled her eyes playfully.

“She’s also been working on her presentation for multicultural week,” Nino said. “And if her cousin is visiting, she might just be busy.”

“Still,” Lila interjected. “It isn’t fair for Marinette to keep Alix waiting when she promised she’d make her the shorts.”

“Mmph,” Alix grunted. “I’ll just ask her about it after lunch.”

“After her presentation, you mean,” Alya said. “I wonder what it’s about, anyway? The school has been strangely secretive about it, and Marinette’s been ‘too busy’ all week to give me any details.” Alya rolled her eyes again, significantly less playfully.

“I think they’re trying to surprise us with it,” Juleka mumbled, and Lila internally scowled at her. Ugh, mumbling.

“Surprise us?” Nathaniel repeated. “Why would they want to surprise us?”

“They probably want to make multicultural week as engaging as possible,” Lila said. “I mean, hearing about those places first hand is probably the best way to learn about what they’re like in real life. Excluding actually going there, of course.”

“So you’ll have absolutely no problem on the test, Lila,” Rose said.

Lila flipped her hair over her shoulder gracefully. “Of course not.”

“Mmh,” Alya hummed, frowning. “But what about Marinette’s presentation will surprise us?”

“Oh, I know the answer to that,” Lila said. Everyone’s attention focused on her, and she basked in it for a moment before getting back to the task at hand. “I accidentally overheard Ms. Bustier talking with another teacher this morning. Marinette’s presentation is going to be about Eden.”

Alya choked on the water she was drinking. “Eden?!”

Lila shrugged. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”

“Statistically, there’s a 91% chance Lila is correct,” Max said, and Lila had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. He was always rattling on and on about his stupid statistics. It was so annoying. “They’ve been working their way east, so to speak. From the Americas to Africa to Europe and today Asia. Additionally, Alya is correct. Ms. Bustier and the other teachers have been oddly close-lipped about the last presentation. It is quite likely that they’re trying to surprise us with something special. An opportunity to learn about the most reclusive city in the world certainly qualifies.”

“That’s awesome!” Kim exclaimed loudly.

“It’s definitely a lot cooler than what they did for last year’s multicultural week,” Nino agreed.

Alya, however, was frowning. “I didn’t know Marinette was from Eden. Why wouldn’t she tell me? Aren’t I her best friend?”

Lila took on a sympathetic look and reached out to pat Alya’s arm. “Oh, Alya. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Marinette is actually from Eden.”

A pause. Alya blinked. “What?”

“I doubt Marinette herself is from Eden,” Lila reiterated. “I mean, think about it. Eden revealed itself a few weeks ago, and Marinette is suddenly doing a presentation on it? It seems pretty unlikely.”

Alya frowned again. “Yeah, it does seem pretty unlikely. But would Marinette lie about something like that?”

“Hmm,” Lila hummed, cocking her head. “She’s probably not lying, per say. Just stretching the truth. It’s probably something like her great, great, great, great grandfather is from Eden, and she’s taking advantage of the recent reveal to make her presentation exciting and relevant.”

Alya thought about that for a couple seconds, and then nodded decisively. “You’re right. Marinette would have told me she was from Eden if she really was.”

“Exactly,” Lila said, stifling an eye roll. For a self-described hard hitting investigative journalist, Alya was super easy to play. “And, honestly, that’s why I’m kind of worried.”

A pause. The class stared at her.

“Huh?” Myléne murmured. She was almost as bad as Juleka. “Why are you worried?”

“It’s just,” Lila cast her eyes down like she was feeling shy. “We’re going to take a test tomorrow about everything we’ve learned this week, right? But I doubt Marinette really knows very much about Eden, so I’m worried about you guys. If Marinette gives you all faulty information about Eden you could fail the test. That would be terrible!”

The class took a few moments to process that. Lila eyed Rose and Juleka rather impatiently, waiting for one of them to speak up.

After several seconds too long of silence, it was actually Max who spoke up first, not Rose or Juleka. “Failing one portion of the test would not cause instant failure, but it could severely affect our grades. However, I see no other alternative. Most of the information online is speculative or entirely made up. We currently have no better source of information on Eden than Marinette.”

Lila’s eyes drifted over to Rose and Juleka again, but again neither of them spoke up. Honestly, must she do everything herself?

“Actually,” Lila said. “I could help you guys out. I mean, if you want me to. I spent a whole year volunteering there some time ago, so I know all about Eden and its culture.”

“That’s right!” Rose finally exclaimed. “Lila even helped me start writing a song about Eden on Saturday!”

Juleka nodded. “Yeah.”

“Whoa, seriously?” Alix asked.

“Yup!” Rose chirped, saving Lila the effort of having to do it herself.

“That’s so cool,” Nathaniel said. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

“We can’t wait to play it!” Rose exclaimed, looping an arm around Juleka’s shoulders and putting her other hand on Ivan’s arm. Both Ivan and Juleka gave their versions of a smile, which were hardly worth the title in Lila’s opinion. Apparently “goth” and “socially adept” were mutually exclusive at François-Dupont.

“I want to hear it too!” Kim shouted, and Lila scowled before quickly wiping the expression from her face. They were getting off track.

“Right,” Lila said, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear her. “So if you guys need someone to teach you about Eden, I’d be happy to do it!”

“Really?” Myléne squeaked out.

“That’d be awesome!” Sabrina exclaimed, and Lila grinned viciously when she didn’t see Chloe anywhere in the area. “Please, oh please tell us about Eden, Lila!”

“Yeah, please tell us about it,” Nathaniel agreed.

Lila schooled her face into a hesitant look. She noticeably glanced at a nearby clock. “I really would love too, but I don’t know if I can tell you guys everything you might need to know before lunch is over. I have no idea what questions will be on the test, and there’s so much to say about Eden!” Lila paused for a moment, giving it time, before dramatically perking up. “Actually, I just thought of something!”

“What’s that?” Nino asked.

“They’re not actually taking attendance this week, right?” Lila pointed out. “The school just wants to make sure you know the material. That’s why there’s a test at the end of the week, right?”

“So we could skip for the rest of today and learn what we need to from you instead,” Alix said, saving Lila the effort.

“Exactly!” Lila chirped. “And we could all go out for ice cream while I tell you guys all about Eden. It would be much more fun than sticking around for another presentation, anyway.”

Kim nodded enthusiastically. “Totally!”

Max hesitated, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Getting information from a direct source is likely to be more educational.”

“And way less boring!” Kim shouted, slamming his hands down on the table and jostling everyone’s food. Lila hid her irritation with a well-practiced plastic smile.

Alya hummed loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. She tilted her head. “I can’t deny that a direct source is undoubtedly superior, but what about Marinette’s presentation? She’s been working pretty hard on it.”

Lila frowned. “Are you saying Marinette would want all of us to fail just so we’d see her presentation?”

Alya’s eyes widened. “No! Of course not.”

“Right.” Lila nodded. “Marinette isn’t that kind of person. She won’t care about a silly presentation if it means all of us will be better off. That’s just the kind of friend she is. She’s so helpful, even if she is clumsy and forgetful.”

“That’s right,” Alya agreed.

A grin overtook Lila’s face. “Yeah. So I’m sure she won’t mind you guys skipping out. It’s just a pity she won’t be able to come with us since she has to give her presentation. But maybe I can write up some notes later tonight and send them to her to make sure she doesn’t fail either.”

“That’s so nice of you, Lila!” Sabrina praised.

Lila preened. “Thanks Sabrina! It might hurt my wrists to type that much, but I don’t want Marinette to fail either.”

“What about Adrien?” Nino asked, adjusting his hat. “We can’t leave him out of the loop.”

Lila nodded. “Of course not! I was thinking that we should wait here and see if he arrives early for lunch, and if not, one of you could wait for him and lead him to the rest of us when he arrives. I don’t want to leave him out, and I’m sure Adrien will appreciate a day out with his friends. It’s a real shame his father restricts him to the house so much.”

“Oh yeah,” Nino muttered. “That dude needs to take a chill pill. Or a dozen.”

“But today Adrien might be able to spend a whole afternoon hanging out with his friends,” Lila said. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

“Totally,” Nino agreed. Lila could see he was completely on board now. They all were. She smiled gleefully.

All week long, Lila had kept an eye on Marinette. In between presentations, all she’d done was help her classmates or work on her own presentation. Both were clearly very important to her.

So for her classmates to miss the presentation she’d worked oh so hard on? That would definitely hurt her. And when she was hurt, she was volatile. Easily manipulated. Most people were.

Any way Marinette reacted, Lila had a plan. Angry? It would be child’s play to make Marinette look like a bully. Sad? How could she be upset at the class for wanting to get good grades? Distant? Being passive aggressive is so cruel and manipulative.

And if she got akumatized? Oh, if she got akumatized, Lila would hit the jackpot. Marinette would almost certainly come after her as an akuma, and Ladybug would surely protect her. Lila could reaffirm her claim to the class about being Ladybug’s best friend, and she could pretend to be scared of Marinette afterwards. Every interaction with Marinette from them on would end with Lila on top without her having to utter a single word. All she would have to do is look terrified and everyone would jump to her defense.

If Marinette was akumatized, Lila would be in the perfect position to eliminate Marinette as a problem. Her false trauma would mean she and Marinette needed to be kept apart. And that opened up a world of possibilities.

She and Marinette couldn’t possibly be in the same class anymore if Lila started trembling every time she set eyes on her. The school would be forced to separate them. The issue would be taken to the principal, and that money-grubbing suck up would obviously choose Lila over Marinette because Lila’s mother was actually important. At the least, Marinette would transfer to another class and away from all of her precious friends. At best, Marinette would be expelled from François-Dupont.

Their classmates would also be forced to choose between Marinette and Lila, and they would choose Lila. Who would side with the aggressor as opposed to the victim, after all? And when Lila had everyone else on her side, Adrien would be hers too. He valued his friendships too much to give the majority of them up for one girl who could barely get a sentence out around him, and he was terrified of rejection from his peers.

Yes, Lila wanted Marinette to get akumatized. She could make everything work out perfectly once she was. And she would be. Lila would make sure of that.

@miraculous-of-salt, @plushbookworm, @reyna-avila-ramirez-alreanaldo, @captainmac6, @unmaskedagain, @crazylittlemunchkin, @mochinek0, @diamondheart31, @schrodingers25, @northernbluetongue, @heaven428, @starberry-mina

Tell me if you want to be added or removed from the tag list.

746

What are some of your favorite cities you've been to? Locally, I loved Sagada, Vigan, and Basco. Outside of the country, I really enjoyed Bali and Shanghai. Would you allow your children to date prior to 16? (assuming you want any) I wouldn’t stop them but I suppose I’d watch over them more and have more rules while they’re still under 16, like no overnights at their SO’s place or that they have to be home by a certain time. Did you ever go through a phase where you thought guys in bands were 'hot?' Hah yep. I grew up during the pop punk/alternative rock era man, where most prepubescent girls were gaga over people like Stephen Gomez from The Summer Set or Jack Barakat of All Time Low. What's something about adult life you were never warned of or prepared for? The extent of being independent, like the sheer amount of bills to pay, how to check if the gas in your kitchen is doing fine, etc. I panic ever so slightly more day by day because I still don’t know how to cook anything and that’s literally Basic Adult Life Skill #1. Did your parents teach you proper table manners when you were growing up? Yes. They both work in hospitality management so stuff like that has been taught to me from a very young age. I can still vividly remember my mom teaching me how to eat pasta and soup properly or when she told me what it means when a bunch of spoons and forks of different sizes are laid out in front of me.

What was the last thing you baked? Chocolate chip cookies, but that was nearly two years ago.  Do you live more than 5 hours away from the nearest international border? Yeah, if you swam all the way there lmao. Kidding but uhhh I don’t – at least I don’t think so. The countries nearest us are pretty...nearby and if you took a boat you’ll probably get there in a couple of hours. Does your town have a farmer's market? No. I think the ones in Cubao are the closest one. What's the westernmost point you've been to? I’m not so sure, I’ve only been around Southeast and East Asia. Strictly speaking I think it has to be Malaysia, but that’s nowhere near the west haha. What was the last restaurant you made a reservation at? Gab and I never really get to have dates as fancy as this. We tried to book a reservation at Barcino once for Valentine’s Day, but they told us no precisely because they weren’t taking reservations for that day. When did you last feel lonely? This afternoon. I always start feeling a tad bit lonely during the afternoons which a nap can often fix. Can you easily tell when others are masking their true emotions? Not always. Some people are good at masking. How often do you wash your car? I don’t. My mom is so particular about how every single item in the house must be cleaned a certain way, and no matter how hard I try to imitate her methods they’re almost always wrong in her eyes so I didn’t even try with my car anymore. I don’t think I wanna hear “you didn’t scrub right” “you missed a spot” “did you even clean the car?” especially after trying my best. When did you last lend money to a friend? It was years ago when I’d lend money to Gab so she can put gas in her car or book a Grab/Uber. Now it’s the other way around, hahaha. Which app on your phone do you tend to get the most notifications from? Facebook. Messenger is almost always active since it’s the most popular chat app where I live. Do you own a Dutch oven? If so, what was the last thing you cooked in it? We probably do but it’s most likely one of my mom’s prized kitchenware that’s always hidden away and never used unless we have important visitors lol. Do you find it easy to put yourself in somebody else's shoes? No, I don’t think you can truly understand what someone with difficulties is exactly going through. What I am prone to be though is feeling sensitive and when someone is having a tough time, I do usually feel sad for them. Sometimes I’ll simply cry thinking about what they’re going through. What is currently on your kitchen table? We have one main counter and on it are my parents’ coffee maker, the water dispenser, the rack for our plates and glasses, mug hanger, and utensil holder. What is your favorite time period in history to learn about? Ooooh I really like history though. I don’t think I’ve ever found myself bored reading about a certain era. How old were you when you met your current best friend? I was 7 when I met the first one, and 13 when I met the other. Have you ever kissed a smoker? Yep but I’ve never liked kissing her after smoking. What is the minimum age to obtain a driver's license in your state/country? 18. ^ Do you think this is an appropriate age, or should it be higher/lower? It’s appropriate. I got mine at 18 and it worked out fine, and the only reason I got into accidents early on is because I was always driving very carefully but was unfortunately surrounded by dumbass drivers who liked to bully my much smaller car around.   If you won the lottery, do you think any of your family members would ask you to give them some of your money? I honestly don’t think so but maybe I just don’t know their true colors just yet HAHAHA. What is the craziest thing you've seen happen at your workplace? Thankfully I didn’t see it happen in person as it would’ve broken me completely, but it was when the Shopping Center at campus burned down. That was the first place I went to after I officially enrolled in my school (I had lunch with my dad and bought a UP car sticker) and it was also the first place my block dropped by to hang out together when we all met each other for the first time, so a lot of memories were in that place and I’m sure this was the case for all students too. That was a really sad day and I almost didn’t want to go to class when I saw the videos of the fire. Do you own any home automation gadgets like wifi thermostats or wifi bulbs? My parents have a wifi bulb. What is something you gave up on after many failed attempts? Instagram. I’ve always tried hyping myself up to finally make an account but egh, it just screams fakeiness to me. How old were you when you started to seriously think about what career path you wanted to pursue? When I was 19 or 20 as that was the age when I started having friends who graduated college and went on to have Real Life Jobs. Have you ever disliked a book so much that you didn't finish it? Yeah I got a random book once when my mom let me pick out whatever book I felt like getting when I was like 11 or 12. I don’t even remember the title anymore hahah but it was such a bore. I don’t know if I threw it out or if it’s buried somewhere in my room. Would you rather read a book, or listen to the audiobook? Read the book. I’m bad at listening to accents and have always needed subtitles, but if I needed subtitles for an audiobook then I might as well have just picked the book hahaha. Do you think tomorrow will be a better day than today? I don’t know. All days are the same now.

‘Some of My Memories of Milwaukee+ or a Personal Odyssey’ or ‘And in the Years of Doing Other Things’

2012

Talking with kind of ex-girlfriend never actually my girlfriend called her ‘think of you as my wife’ in letter ater wrote Mark Helprin-esque ‘disclaim you forever with canned blessing’ letters about Aristophanes’ ‘Lysistrata’ in which Greek women refuse their beds to the menfolk to induce them to stop warring.  Max Beerbohm or someone said, ‘There is a God and h/His name is Aristophanes.’  I don’t believe that at all but he was a good-natured writer that I can tell and also wrote about clouds and birds apocalyptically or otherwise and made fun of Socrates which I approve of.  I don’t know anything about Socrates; my ex-friend used to say ‘I LOVE Socrates,’ that he could feel Socrates’ love.  Socrates would say things like ‘The law is the advantage of the powerful’ and stated that if he reached an after-life he would continue to ‘troll, hit up, impertinently or insidiously argue with’ people forever there.  He said the after-life could be like sleep without a dream.  My friend said something about New York City and a production of Lysistrata then I started making hyper-fanfictions already in which Girls Gen decided to stop performing until war stopped or something and threw a Christmas festival with vermillion-colored fruit compotes but I honestly don’t remember a lot & it refleted my ‘Love of the Last Tycoon’ etc.-esque delusion that Media and woman- and girl-training like Lee Sooman would enable me to influence humanity’s future in a really gainful way.  Later on I told Tizzard that Media Studies is an endless kind of college dorm-bull-session and NKS was the real deal, that reality exists, that ‘Visual Pedagogy’ is an excuse for inferior faculty and no real curriculum or purpose but it didn’t really matter b/c kids / the poor in spirit love media - I loved media too.  I rem. being so happy in college to skip Phonology one day to play Final Fantasy 10 and I still got an A b/c Phonology is a decently logical human suitable discipline for someone like me.  There is a Korean word that kind of means ‘suitable’ that starts with  ‘J’ in transliteration that used to mean a lot to me and also I conflate with a kind of ‘yes.’  

This person was also like ‘Why did you say you would go back to KR’ as opposed to apply to CTC or be a literary agent to casting-couch desperate alienated lady-authors for fun and bragging-rights and I sold myself short saying it was all about drunken proclamations - I actually didn’t know what I wanted to do and kept ‘short-selling David James Johnston’ talking about TV-writing when I already sort of decided that the power of TV was just a money-making-vehicle and that TV would not really change people’s minds for the better but just hypnotize or mesmerize them with more of what Jay McInerney(?) pace some French satanico-moral philosopher called ‘empty beauty.’  I rec’d people Friday Night Lights and they became Amfootball-fetishists with a fake God-evasion-religion-system; rec’d ‘Generation Kill’ and instead of understanding the sadness of the Iraq War or the fact that people just like us w/ videogames and pornography and Jerry Springer and all the sad beauty of irreverence and sort of boyish self-pity in the world was being thrown teeth- and brains-first in to the walls of Fallujah.  (Years later thinking stuff like what is fake news what is real news, was the ComGen of the 1st Marine Division right to dismiss the Col. who had been careful w/ fueling tanks and his men’s lives?  Today did the USMC really disband their tank corps or is it more of a ‘clue.’)  

I remember when this person was 24 and I did quasi-test-adultery-turned-in-to-actual-adultery in NYC; I kept thinking that my dream would come true if I were faithful.  It puts me in mind in retrospect of ‘Adagio Cantabile’ from the ‘Pathetique’ in which the young boyish Beethoven keeps re-crossing and re-tracing and repressing the same few things.  There was a kid in KR who was counting his pocket-change to buy snack noodles + he looked about as well-fed as Haitian kids today munching on clay-biscuits to ease their hunger-pains or North Koreans or Chinese eating corncobs and smoking meth to cope whilst his mom supposedly hoped be would become a basketball-player.  Other kid’s om was working in a bar, constantly forgetting to check HW, so but, Counseling was really boffo / spec and just reminded her again and again b/c in some places there are still reasonable compliant obedient square people who don’t deflect from doing the right thing, just get overwhelmed at times and want a break.  Ironically Ayn Rand once defined evil as ‘blanking out’ yet she herself was doing amphetamines, propounding complex justifications for adultery, smoking, bashing a revelatory tragic anti-Nazi but pro-Germany author called Thomas Wolfe in ‘The Romantic Manifesto’ - Wolfe also cared about Japanese, about humility in the publishing industry, about nurses.  

I went to Whole Foods to get pineapple but there the story sort of ends.  There was Boa Kwon or BoA whom I once saw on WLIW NJ public TV and thought it was someone else; in retrospect this person was too smooth for me to read at all and I have no faith or trust in such an one who would lash out egomaniacally at any one at any time, prob. beat their kid to death with a trowl then take a nap in the next room b/c ppl at a certain level are like careless military officers that decide one illegal or irresponsible order deserves another b/c it’s image-management, what Emerson calls ‘a foolish consistency,’ or Derek Chauvin-esque drive and desire and determination to magnify one’s little point. 

Later I started to reticulate or conceive of Lee Sooman in terms of a failed priest or one who had repeatedly and almost orthodoxly dodged his vocation.  ‘Black Collar.’  I guessed using my ‘amae-guess-magic-bullets’ that his wife’s name is Eunjin + thought then, I don’t even remember.  Told some ppl who didn’t really care that love-dreams are good and ‘Love and Peace’ was great b/c whilst America was being sarcastic and deflectionistic about everything SNSD were like, ‘We will compose in C-natural; we will be Tolstoyian; we will make direct statements about reality.’  I felt ‘Everyday Love’ was about ‘cybernetics’ or adapting the natural ‘Spenglerian peasant wisdom self’ to ‘the cold intellect of the city / civilization / dying-but-peaking epochal imperial organization.’  During this same time in my life or thereabouts I read a neo-hyper-Nazi book called ‘Imperium’ by a guy who admired the kamikaze and called for ‘wars of annihilation’ as well as castigating America for her cult of the average.  This person said Japan’s not weak at all, they accelerated or amplified Spengler’s admiration for the Roman soldier at Vesuvius who refused to abandon their post since no one gave them orders to leave.  In re the which I can only surmise pace Grace to You that somewhere there are still ‘thoroughbreds’ like that.  At other times in life I said stuff that got me trashed on RedditButBothSides for using terms like ‘social form’ and Paul Washer of HeartCry who summed up much of my own life in telling it that ‘the porn-addict and misogynist is unloving’ was praising the African father, I love the African-African (not American) minister at Christ Church Episcopalian but then I am like, ‘drmdrmdrm Zulu king marching all his warriors off a cliff to prove a point about authority.’  I’m really really a child of the 1990s, Gandhi, MLK, Tiananmen Square bag-man, flower-in-rifle-bore.  I never expected to levitate the Pentagon but I truly believed that if we’re nice to them they will be nice to us.

Later I over-compensate the other way and started making ‘psychopathic midrash’ like, ‘What do you make of the Good Samaritan if the thieves are still beating the man half or more to death when the Samaritan arrives and what if the Samaritan has a taser, handgun, rifle, bayonet, how good are they at martial arts, what’s their chest-circumference, what’s their reputation.’  But again people hate this because its super-worldly and technocratic. I had started to admire fmr. President George W. Bush b/c I felt that he was pushing back against the people who wanted bad to go from bad to worse, b/c I agreed with him about immigration, and b/c I felt I saw progress in his life frankly and even in Trump’s life where he nuked his earlier marriages but remained faithful and respectful to Melania.   Marie Lee has it out for Barron Trump I guess but he’s still neurophysiologically / neuroanatomically very much not a full adult and it’s also literally ‘Titus Andronicus’-esque revenge pornography to go after a leader’s kids like that + distracting from WW3, nuclear terrorism, DF-26 Black Death warheads, satellite-bombs, annihilating the entire Midwest’s population for the topsoil here; and because Jack London once said ‘The Chinese work too hard so we the freedom-loving peoples ought to kill them all with germ-weapons and take their land.’

I later started dreaming about KKOOM Orphanage, a cold morning, eating coffee-crystals, a basketball-court a bit like ‘Trabia Garden’ from FF8.  I felt people learn a lot from poverty, limits, prison, commitment, losing things.  Meanwhile ‘Shanghai-1′ is like you’re exotic male prostitute and she too is the typical Chinese-Singaporean-Japanese-wannabe-British anti-Korean racist who thinks Koreans are the n-----s of East Asia permanently deserving of subjugation and that we all ought to amuse ourselves by making sure they remain permanent hedonistic sensualists physicalists etc.  Keep them thinking about hip-bones till the end of time + make sure we have EYK, reaction-vids, self-niggerization- / ethical-evolution-inhibition-engines such as PSY or really all of YGE.  

When I used to blog about T-ARA, Eunjung, and my dumb adventures with a secret life several Black girls approached e and I remember them well; curiously turned out to be involved in incest and/or rape-trauma.  I told ‘lonelystrangergirl’ she stood a good chance of finding ‘manly KBF’ if she joined the military but I didn’t then know or take cognizance of all the problems in the US military with women.  The fmr. Vice President Mike Pence was on talk radio saying, ‘WOMEN in the MILITARY’ my relation is like, ‘Millennial guys were pozzed pussy flyboys and effeminate art-fags who couldn’t transcend their self-consciousness so it’s no wonder’ but those are also ppl’s daughters, moms, people whose simplicity and loveliness might actually inspire a few men to act like men, though that is a very old complaint at this point, hopeful Kim Minju’s of the soul and mind who want to do what they can when they can, the world’s telling them to be super-heroines and it appears to convect(?) towards ‘All Loves Excelling.’  I hate doing physiognomy but it’s like this generation of Valkyries like Else in the Thomas Wolfe novel who won’t say anything about Hitler.  

Again however, JMC on Grace to You as saying, Christ is the Rock, pulverization.  

2014.

There was a new Korean restaurant w/ a limited menu, a stringed instrument no one ever plays, Thai lampshades.  I talked about General Petraeus a bit, yesterday’s wars the Korean 3-star general from Vietnam who was buried in an infantryman’s grave and talked about the caste-system in the North Korean military, about hundreds of thousands taking to sea to g out of NV.  In retrospect IDK why I said anything!  The ferry-sinking, I’m trying to say, ‘This is society; this is the pozzery of systems that don’t work; this is people who don’t even look at people ad think they know and care when they just made the Homer Simpson drip-bird-care-machine auto-billing, meretriciousness.’  I still think PGH took the fall for a bunch of men who devised the ROK Coast Guard and manned it, lesbian mysticist, hairstyle.  

I wish I kept all my thoughts and feelings to myself b/c then I could’ve planned.  That was Applebee’s which later moved to another location, hen to another, then was razed to he ground in like one night.  I mentioned my old mentor or affectionate person ‘Lt. Col.’ who told me about saving people but it was more K-wave self-exploitation, song-and-dance, ultimately, schizoaffective self-sadism.

I liked ‘Library’ by TTS a lot but didn’t realize it is about emotional-epistemic hedonism or wallowing in how much you could do and how useful you knowledge is or could be.  Later they did ‘Adrenaline.’  I am ‘Mr. Seo.’  SJH’s dad.  I’ve seen this a trillions times and I want to open up my ‘answer-macihne-gun’ and be like, ‘don’t listen to Black people; they all all all have the same mentality tow you.  Snoop says he’s a sex-trafficker and that’s precisely what he is; that’s what he is increasingly is and wants to be and is.’  Why did they let him in the ROK at all, except to put him on trial for crimes abroad against Korean nationals?  As this New Yorker cartoon said, ‘I’ll think outside the box when there is no more money in the box.’  

My best friend was traumatized by people like this although there again I ended up even more the worse for wear b/c I started cursing and threatening ppl and stuff.  

TTS however got super-fantastic for at least a little while with SJH’s song ’Only U’ which in retrospect might or might not have been self-composed b/c it’s a Taylorian era and ‘only you can make me,’ in which we become our truest selves by being understood.  This song didn’t even say anything except for a few moments at the very end and as with many things in this era the fan-covers were more perfect than the commercial versions b/c it is again the desperate love of the poor in spirit for leaders and ‘pharons’ (beacons) that makes sth or s1 seem better, seem perfect.  

Celebrity-culture and much of politics are about money, power, image, and corporatistic lesson-teaching / mental Derek Chauvinism.  But these are starting to be empty words.

2008.

Writing a long letter to s1 who had other people.  Why do not I edit all day.  I still remember thinking how these athletes at RU had really great low BF% despite eating junk food so I tried to eat junk food but felt like a loser.  I didn’t realize then that everyone was tagging everyone all the time.

‘If only they had stayed in h/Hot p/Pursuit...’  I decided to nuke my undergraduate syntax and just start every sentence with ‘They.’  Setpiece in Denver.  I talked about ‘agape’ (Gr. word about Christ’s Charity or Christian concern for the soul which I don’t speak Greek), about hotels with doors between the rooms.  But then there was all this in retrospect very obvious trash about overachievers and Asians which was trying to share one world w/ people from another who didn’t really want it.  Like FF.net people saying ‘We really admired you; a lot of us are kind of stuck in the trailer-park and we know RapMonster is far distant from us but we like that your admiration of RM has been getting you somewhere.’  Wanting to take everyone along when in fact some of them want to let you go; my friend KateLorraine’s North Star column from FFnet long ago where it is like ‘Let us teach everyone in the universe to be self-sufficient writers and literary critics of life as well as perfect book-reviewers of ev1 they ever meet with the perfect savoir-faire action-response-system-protocol pace Colossians 4:6.’  

This could make everyone friends with everyone today but I later came to see that t/Trust is something ‘circumscribed.’  It’s like Mirabel says in this Cogreve play that would need to be heavily footnoted by Bethlehem Seminary, ‘Let us be very reserved.’  Why party?  Why celebrate being a couple?  There’s this tiny hint of something at the end of the Song of Songs, ‘My small-breasted little sister, who’s gonna marry her?’  I for years ‘kept my virtue to myself’ b/c it is like Russian suitcase-nukes, anti-family, anti-couples, anti-biblical(?), anti-God, to say couples shouldn’t trash others behind their backs.  I failed to appreciate the total ‘Shakespearea-irony-sized’ or idolatrous / cupiditinous implication in songs like ‘Red Is the Rose’ or a novel called ‘Angel and Hannah’ which I still hve no summative statement on b/c it as just the 1990s and what Stephen Crane might characterize as the defiant, prideful, Son of Morning-esque devouring of one’s own bitter heart.  I re. years ago someone said Japanese like falling flowers and Chi like fallen flowers.  Ppl rly love their fallen flowers and what they used to be.

There are people on 4chan or all over this world that keep little dreams, hope-chests.  I want to say it can happen, the girl eating noodles can really make something, but maybe I as being a huckster and cultistic love-bomber in pushing everyone to leave home or secretly plot to ditch their family and burn their family’s expectations and social forms.  Again, IDK why Reddit won’t let me say ‘social form’ when all the smart people are saying social form.  But I am unhappy too b/c some ppl do not even have a social form or expectation but just the mind-machine that they’ll never make up.  ‘Let us be humble and faithful and very reserved.’

2013.

‘Jericho.’  Guy with all these flashdrives always taking notes, but why.  Just accept failure and rejection and give your body and presence to the task at hand.  I also made something pre-Covid called ‘Rorate Caeli Desuper et Nubes Pluant Justum’ from an Eastern European composer’s setting about kind of an unauthored person who kept veering from father-figure to father-figure but that too say cynical and IDK why I was attacking women, failing to relate, writing endnotes to the living.  I see to this is what happens when you stand around regarding what others have and are trying to forget particular actions or subsume their significance in some broader supposed mission.  This too was fanfic-ified / plagiarized from a real person which is part of why I guess I didn’t go anywhere with it; hoping to do something IRL.’  A speculative phi.-of-teaching piece called ‘When To Care’ but there again it’s Milwaukee Judgment and cf. Levinas, ethical interruption, unethical interruption(?).  ‘Teach You.’  

‘Winter Presences’ from BoA’s ‘Always,’ failed couple rituals.  ‘Perhaps a pizza.’  There was a Philip Roth or somebody’s novel and it crystallized for a sec bu in retrospect again, no real intended audience or beneficiary.  Delta Covid, also Lam(b?)da Covid, sudden transposition / teleportation of 3rd world perils to ex 1st world.  Heavily censor ‘On the Road,’ when they go to Mexico, ‘a bomb had come... and we would in the same same way...’  I remember the moment I was shocked and arrested by a Korean poem called ‘Flower’ which repeats a word sth like ‘desire’ and uses a phrase that people called ‘And we’ but is more like ‘And we all of us’ or even stronger than that, beginning and end.  I wish I could sew or insert a syringe reliably.  Power of children and little people.

No Such Thing as Racism (09/03/2016)

Rant. Brain vomit.

I think it's pretty damn hilarious that people seem to think racism doesn't exist in Korea. Other's opinions don't usually aggravate me this much but sometimes... they post this kind of thing...

"But let's not turn everything into a color issue, when not everything is about race.

South Korea is a homogeneous country - there isn't a lot of exposure to foreigners with different languages and skin colors. I'm sure some people were being malicious, but honestly it was more curiosity and unfamiliarity than it was racism.

Racism towards black people, particularly in the US is unprecedented. It's hard to understand that strong racism isn't present in "non-white" countries. East Asia are some of the only countries where the native people are the dominant population, that have cultures that are completely removed from Western culture."

And then you get some people who completely misunderstand and thank this person for having such deep thoughts/empathy and being so understanding/considerate. No. Just no.

I am pretty sure racism exists in Korea as it does in many countries. People like this woman make it worse, and the other Koreans that rally behind her prove my point. Yes, the younger generation are a lot more aware and educated, but that doesn't mean that the entire society is so. I am pretty sure it is not the case that "strong racism isn't present in "non-white" countries".

The “European Caucasian” may be as unfamiliar to Koreans. However, they are not, I repeat, there is nooooo way that the general population in Korea will treat this man worse than or even equal to a black man from Africa. The average Korean would rather learn English from a blond, blue eyed person from east Europe who speaks bad English rather than someone with dark skin from Africa who has had all their education in English. Unless of course said black person graduated from some Ivy league college ha. Of course it's not everyone, but yes, they do judge that book by its cover. Koreans judge the living daylights out of each other. What makes you think they won't do the same for foreigners? Except in the black man's case, color is a big part of what they will judge you by.

"Completely removed from Western culture". What? Korea has one of the most advanced internet infrastructures. You think they are oblivious to Western, or more specifically American, media? If American media is biased, you think Koreans are shielded from that? You think Koreans aren't fed some of that blatantly racist shit? Yes? Well shit then.

"Racism towards black people, particularly in the US is unprecedented." Hello? What? Apartheid? And whaaaat do you think happened in the last 100 years?? In European colonies all across Africa? Or you count that as one long ass event of "Racism towards black people"? For fuck's sake... the problem with racism in America is not because it's some new or rare phenomenon... part of the fucking problem is that it's so wide spread and not just within the US.... I am aaaalmost at a loss for words...

Then I read some Korean's comment that Koreans do and laugh at black face not cause they hate blacks but because they think it's hilarious and don't know the meaning behind it. What? You think that's a good excuse? So you think it's not racism and that it's ok? You think all the "non-Korean" people who put on black face consciously recognize they are hating on blacks by doing so, and do it solely coz they hate blacks? What do you think all those white kids that went to a frat party with blackface said when they got busted and disciplined by the school? You think they walked in to the dean's office and said "oh we just thought it would be funny. We like black people. We don't understand racism so we can't be racist". This is the problem. People deny that it exists solely because they are not consciously acting upon prejudice.

People who think it's about being afraid of the unknown should recognize that one is not equally "afraid" of things they don't know and do not react the same in every situation involving mentioned unknown.

Just because racism is a bigger issue in the US doesn't make racism in other countries okay, and it doesn't make it not a reason for concern. Just because you think your "African American brothers" have it a lot worse doesn't mean racism in other countries should be ignored, and it certainly doesn't make it okay because "it's not as bad". Racists in the US don't ALL parade around in white cloaks and shoot blacks on sight. Violence isn't the only thing that defines racism.

I can understand that Koreans have a lot of pride and want to defend their people. But at some point it all just becomes excuses and denial. Accepting there is a problem is the first step to making a change for the better, and it certainly is not the oppressed person's job to convince you there is a problem. Done.